428 NATUBAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



74. Dobinea Ham.^ — Flowers dioecious ; male calyx saccate, 4- 

 dentate at apex, valvate. Petals 4, attenuate at base, inserted under 

 the rudiment of the gynseceum, imbricate. Stamens 8, inserted in 

 2-series with, the petals ; 4 opposite the petals, shorter ; filaments 

 free ; anthers introrse, sub-2-dymous, 2-rimose. Female flowers 

 without perianth; gynseceum sessile in axil of bract; germen l-lo- 

 cular, surrounded at base by unequal disk, posteriorly more developed ; 

 style apical slender, spirally involute to apex and stigmatose within ; 

 ovule deseendent from internal angle of the germen ; micropyle in- 

 trorsely superior. Fruit dry compressed, imequally orbiculate, girt 

 with membranous aliform margin, indehiscent ; seed 1 , deseendent ; 

 testa membranous ; cotyledons of exalbuminous curved embryo ellip- 

 tical rather thick ; radicle accumbent. — A shrub ; branches virgate ; 

 leaves opposite petiolate ovately lanceolate serrate penninerved reti- 

 culate ; flowers crowded in terminal nutant very composite ramose 

 cymiferous racemes ; each female supported by a (coloured) anterior 

 adnate bract, fructiferous very accrete dilated subfoliiform Csamaroid) 

 membranous costate reticulately venose.'^ — {Mountainous India? 



1 Don, Prodi: Fl. Nepal. 249. — Endl. Gen. n. 2 A genus of very doubtful place. 



5560. — B. H. Oe». 410, u. 62. ' Spec. 1. D. oppositifoUa Don, he. eit. 



